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If the vote goes in favour of independence, why wouldn't they just go for UDI? Dare Madrid to send in the tanks. Hope they don't myself, but what would be the reason to stop them? If they don't, if I was a Catalan independencist, I'd think my leaders had bottled it.

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The Defector looks like no other breaking pitch in the game. It is well-supinated, leaving the right hand of Fernandez at a fastball trajectory before the laws of physics cease to apply and the laws of awesome take over.

I don't think working class Londoners struggling with low wages and high rents are greedy at all. They do face problems due to the over centralisation of the UK economy though and the resulting high rents. Re Catalonia, Spain has very high levels of internal migration and there are many residents in Catalonia who are originally from Andalucia, Valencia, Murcia and Extramadura, so their rights would have to be safeguarded. Big issues to be resolved would be the central bank and unlike the Scottish indyref the issue of a banking union has already been in the press. A coralito would be in place very quickly.

Some of the locals where I am think Madrid and Catalonia do quite well already. Lot of Real fans in the bars though. Off season a Real match on telly is the best way to fill a bar, although they all leave in mass the minute the game finishes. The Athetico supporters are always more raucous than those of Real or Barcelona.

Madrid and Catalonia are the two richest and most privileged regions of Spain - Madrid has benefitted from the court and Catalonia from commerce.
Catalonia's rich want to pay less taxes and it has been dressed up in patriotic sentiment. You will find the discourse is dressed up in how much harder Catalans work and how much more serious and democratic they are and this plays well in the countryside. Puigdemont comes from this culture. The governing party in Madrid gets no votes in Catalonia and whips up nationalist fervour and votes with anti-catalan um, racism? Nationalism?
Both these sides benefit from this and I would suggest, nobody else does; and I would not be surprised if it ends in violence. It is all simply shit for the rest of us, and divisive shit at that.

If you drive over the border the small towns inland are covered in flags. You'd think that 100% were separatists which is why support is hard to call. Unanism basically.

There is great support for independence in the small towns, always has been. Rajoy's achievement has been to provoke a huge increase in support for independence in the rest of Catalonia (in my time here it has always increased significantly when the PP is in power).